Developments in Iran and Sinai Deepen Israel’s Worries About Egypt

Egyptian soldiers destroying tunnels at the Egypt-Gaza border that may have been possibly used in a recent attack.Credit
Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

JERUSALEM — With Egypt’s new Islamist president headed to Iran next week and its military deploying tanks in the Sinai Peninsula — possibly outside the parameters of his nation’s 33-year-old treaty with Israel — officials here are increasingly worried about what has long been their most critical regional relationship.

Israel’s Defense Ministry and military have each sent several messages of concern to Cairo in recent days about Sinai, and received no response, a senior government official said Wednesday. That breakdown in communication, two weeks after a deadly terrorist attack along the border between the nations, comes alongside President Mohamed Morsi’s announcement that he will defy the West and break with Egyptian precedent to attend a summit meeting of nonaligned nations in Tehran, complicating Israeli and American efforts to define Iran as a pariah state because of its nuclear program.

When Egypt’s longtime leader, Hosni Mubarak, was toppled last year, Israel worried about the loss of a dependable strongman who had helped preserve a reliable if chilly peace. Concern grew with this spring’s election of a president from the Muslim Brotherhood and deteriorating security in the Sinai Peninsula, which bridges the two nations. The concerns have grown as Egyptians from across the political spectrum have in recent weeks demanded a review of the treaty, and in particular, its restrictions on Egypt’s military presence in Sinai.

While Mr. Morsi announced Wednesday that he would visit Washington next month, the gesture to the Obama administration was somewhat clouded by his decision to go first to Iran, even as Israel has implored others to boycott the meeting in solidarity with its concerns over Iran’s disputed nuclear program. And while the tanks in the desert are little threat to Israel, the lack of coordination around their deployment is seen as potentially undermining a peace treaty that has been a cornerstone of Israel’s security for decades.

“We must be very severe with abiding by the spirit and the letter of the peace treaty — otherwise we will be on a slippery slope, and no one knows where this might lead,” the senior official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to anger Egyptian officials at a tense time.

“If we’re in the realm of the informal, of the gentlemen’s agreement, when does the gentleman stop being a gentleman and start being a rogue?” the official continued. “We’re not going to sound any alarm, and we’re not going to question the whole treaty, but we are opening our eyes with a certain concern to certain aspects that are taking place.”

Yasser Ali, a spokesman for Mr. Morsi, said Wednesday in an interview that “Egypt respects its treaties” and “complies with everything related to these commitments,” adding that any effort to adjust the details “would be done through the legal and legitimate means.”

While the revolution that led to Mr. Mubarak’s ouster was driven largely by domestic concerns, the protesters also demanded far more independence in Egypt’s foreign policy, as they sharply criticized alliances with the United States and Israel. Egypt’s new president, eager to consolidate his power and enhance his legitimacy, is under pressure to satisfy those demands.

The trip to Iran sends a clear signal of Egypt’s charting a new course by connecting with one of the region’s most influential players, though it has given no indication it plans to restore full diplomatic relations. Regardless of intent, the move inevitably antagonizes Israel, which sees Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and is under pressure from Washington and Europe to refrain from military action until economic sanctions have had a chance to work.

Many Egyptians have also called on Mr. Morsi to demand total sovereignty in Sinai, which was demilitarized under terms of the 1979 peace treaty. Some in Israel have questioned whether the new government is using the Aug. 5 attack — in which masked gunmen killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, then burst into Israel in an armored car loaded with explosives — as a pretext to modify the treaty without going through the proper channels.

Mr. Ali said in the interview that “until now we haven’t received any note of official protest to the military movements in Sinai,” raising questions about whether Israel is having trouble mastering the channels of communication in the new government. The senior Israeli official acknowledged that the lack of response could be attributed to the recent overhaul of the Egyptian security services, or even to the Id al-Fitr holiday ending Ramadan.

Even as some officials worried aloud about deteriorating coordination on the border, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that “there are ongoing, uninterrupted contacts, communications between the national security structures of both sides.”

But several analysts close to the prime minister and defense establishment said there were deep and growing concerns.

“To the extent that the Egyptian government challenges the clauses of the treaty of peace with Israel, it undermines the regional peace process as a whole — it’s a big deal,” said Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “If you don’t state clearly what your concerns are as the Egyptians increase their forces in Sinai, you could end up with a fait accompli that undermines your most vital security interest.”

As Egypt and Israel struggle over Sinai, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has been trying to insert itself, offering to form a joint security committee with Egypt. But Hamas leaders said Wednesday that they had yet to receive any response to that proposal from Cairo. “The relation between Gaza government and Egypt has not developed to what we look for,” said Yousef Rizka, political adviser to Hamas’s prime minister.

Nabil Fahmy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said this week in an interview that Israel’s complaints about the tanks, coming after earlier complaints about Egypt’s not doing enough to secure the peninsula, were “comical.”

Given the severity of the Aug. 5 attack, he said that the military response was “quite normal” and that he believed the parts of the peace treaty governing troop deployment needed to be rewritten.

“One has to take into account that the agreement, while it applies, is actually meant to deal with a static situation, much more than one that is volatile,” Mr. Fahmy said. “It should happen with a calm, clear and considered mind-set on both sides.”

Amos Gilad, director of policy and political-military affairs at Israel’s Defense Ministry, insisted Wednesday in a contentious interview on Israel Radio that “the peace agreement can’t be changed without the consent of both sides.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 23, 2012, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Developments in Iran and Sinai Deepen Israel’s Worries About Egypt. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe